Overall, this is a pretty capable little grinder, as long as you aren't looking for an espresso grind. It just can't do a fine enough grind. This is why my overall rating was just a 5. I drink espressos mainly, so I'm disappointed with the machine's inability to get fine enough. Otherwise, though, the grind is actually pretty consistent, so it's good-to-go for regular coffee grinds. It's an attractive appliance, has a decent weight to it, and has a reasonable footprint. Noise level isn't too bad, either. The hopper isn't huge, but it's not tiny, either. Perfectly capacious for most people, I expect. It's not a "leave your pound of beans in it and grind at-will" machine.
The receiver for the grounds, though, isn't thought out too well. It's a deep, narrow plastic tub with a simple cap on the top. Spooning grounds from it is a little awkward. Also, static charge on the plastic is a problem and grounds will get everywhere. The machine doesn't fully empty itself into the receiver, so, when you pull the receiver from the machine, grounds will fall out of the tube that feeds into the receiver. Sometimes, that tube can become plugged with grounds, so cleaning it out after every grind is recommended.
I tried to hack the grinder in order to get a finer grind. The way the grinder is designed, you have to remove the top burr in order to clean the interior. The top burr is simply screwed into a plastic cap/knob. I tried removing the burr from the cap and inserting a very thin plastic shim that I fabricated. Lets call it a gasket. The theory being that, perhaps, the burrs simply were not close enough to each other to get a fine espresso grind. Adding this gasket would have the effect of moving the top burr ever so slightly closer to the bottom burr. Well, while the theory seemed sound, the execution didn't pay-off. Once reassembled and powered-on, the burrs simply locked-up. They refused to grind anything. So, I took it all apart and removed the gasket. The grinder went back to working. I'm not sure if I should try to find an even thinner material to use and try again. If anyone has a suggestion, I'm all ears. It just seems to me there should be some way to get this thing to grind just a little finer. It's so close, yet so far. |
